Dodgers' offense looks as rickety and vulnerable as ever as Shohei Ohtani and Co. lose NLCS Game 1 to the Brewers

MILWAUKEE — Shohei Ohtani got a haircut. It's not the only reason the four-time MVP doesn't quite look like himself.

Three-hundred and fifty-nine days ago, Ohtani delivered baseball's greatest ever single-game performance in NLCS Game 4 against the Milwaukee Brewers . Six scoreless innings and 10 strikeouts on the mound. Long balls in his first three at-bats. It was a sporting superhuman at the peak of his powers. It was remarkable. It was comprehensive. It was inarguable.

It was a long time ago. Or, at least, that's how it feels right now.

Because this Ohtani is not that Ohtani. This postseason is not that postseason. And this Dodgers club, 2-1 losers of NLCS Game 1 on Sunday , is not that Dodgers club. The Brewers, too, are meaningfully different this time around, a more talented, more experienced, more formidable foe. The gap, one year after Los Angeles dismembered Milwaukee in a four-game humiliation ritual, has definitively closed.

Sunday night provided an exhibition of that.

Unfortunately, Game 1 did not unfurl into the all-time classic pitchers' duel it could have been. Neither Jacob Misiorowski, the likely 2026 NL Cy Young, nor Tarik Skubal, the 2024 and 2025 AL Cy Young, were at their rip-roaring best.

Los Angeles' offense ground Misiorowski down in the second inning, plating a run and forcing the flame-throwing right-hander to throw 35 pitches. Only a timely, well-turned double play off Kiké Hernández's bat kept Miz and the Brewers from total disaster.

Skubal, in the early going, looked as overpowering as ever. He cruised through the first three innings, punching out six and allowing just one baserunner. But Brewers second baseman Brice Turang popped him for a solo homer in the fourth on a freakish piece of hitting . In the fifth, Milwaukee pushed the go-ahead run across via a walk, a sacrifice bunt and a single up the middle from diminutive rookie Luis Lara.

The score held from there. After chasing Misiorowski in the fifth, Los Angeles' lineup couldn't solve Milwaukee's bullpen. Four relievers combined for a scoreless final 4 2/3 innings. The Dodgers threatened in the ninth against closer Trevor Megill, but Mookie Betts flied out to center to end the threat and send 42,617 no-longer-tense Wisconsinites home happy.

"I thought we had a great plan. We executed against Misiorowski really well ...," first baseman Freddie Freeman said after the loss. "We did our job there, just didn't get the big hit tonight."

The Dodgers, despite besting Atlanta in the NLDS, haven't collected many big hits at all so far this October. They have just two knocks in 22 plate appearances with runners in scoring position. Both of those belong to Andy Pages, who punched home Los Angeles' only run on Sunday with a perfectly placed dribbler that squeaked through the right side. Postseason teams that fail to record an extra-base hit are now 5-35 since 2021. It's tough to string singles together in the regular season; it's even harder in October against a staff regularly touching triple digits.

That's why the long ball is so important and why this Dodgers offense, as currently constructed, looks as vulnerable and as rickety as ever. Mookie Betts, Will Smith and Shohei Ohtani, the Nos. 1, 3 and 4 hitters in Game 1, are a combined 8-for-53 with zero extra-base hits so far in these playoffs. Smith, who looks the most out of sorts, drew a walk on Sunday, reaching base for just the second time in October.

Asked whether he might move the struggling catcher down in the order, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts admitted that he'd thought about it but said he would stick with the status quo for now.

"It's hard because the body of work — and he just has that knack to get a hit, to get a big hit," he said. "... It's a fair question, but right now, I still like him at the top of the order."

Roberts, it's worth noting, has shown a willingness already in this postseason to drop his scuffling stars. Ohtani hit first in all but two of his regular-season starts and hit second in the others. But Roberts pushed him to the five-hole against Chris Sale last week and now has Ohtani slotted in at four. Lineup construction always gets more airtime than it deserves, but there might not be a more telling sign that things are at least somewhat amiss with Ohtani and the Dodgers.

"I think for Shohei, it's just kind of getting back to the basics, and I feel good where he's at," Roberts said before Game 1. "Certainly not 100 percent, but it's good enough. I think for me, it's just try to stay in the strike zone."

Ohtani expanded beyond the zone just once on Sunday, but his problems are about more than chase rate. The 32-year-old is physically compromised, a husk of the supernova who has terrorized hitters over the past half-decade. He is not rotating with the same force or freedom. He is less adaptable and adjustable to pitches in different parts of the zone. There's a certain passivity to his movement, like he's unwilling or unable to fully unleash the dragon. Considering his injury-marred second-half, that's reasonable.

When Ohtani strolled to the dish as the go-ahead run in the eighth inning Sunday, he did not inspire the same type of hearts-in-throats intimidation that he once conjured so regularly. The Brewers went right after the lefty-swinging DH; southpaw Aaron Ashby pumped three sinkers in the strike zone to Ohtani. The Dodgers superstar was a tick late and a tick under the third, lazily popping it up to third base.

Ohtani never even dropped his bat. Instead, he dragged the lumber all the way back to the dugout himself.